Blue Moon In Your Eyes
by NeoVenus22
Summary: PRMF. Xander and Madison's friendship, prior to Broken Spell. [complete]


Xander and Madison's friendship, taking place pre-series. 

Standard disclaimers apply.

* * *

It wasn't impossible that they know each other. Madison was Vida's sister, and everyone knew Vida: she was loud and in your face and she DJed on weekends. Madison was the quieter one, but not too quiet, just not obsessed with making herself _known_ and _heard_ like Vida was. Still, Madison was on the honor roll, and was popular in her own right, editing for the school's TV station, occasionally doing the weather report when Meg was out. Madison never shied away from attention, but she didn't seek it out.

Xander was the new kid. In a transitional year from junior high to high school, the combination of the two area junior highs meant coming across a lot of new faces, so it wasn't a big deal being new in freshman year. Except for two things: Xander had a thick accent that clearly stated he wasn't from around here; and he _talked_. Xander, more than anything, loved the sound of his own voice. Fortunately for him, so did everyone else. Xander had the gift of gab, had the accent and the vocabulary and the charming smile to carry it off, and could talk himself into and out of any situation with ease.

Xander and Madison's paths crossed, naturally—it wasn't that big of a school—but they didn't really show up on each other's radars until they were forced to make the working model of Mount Vesuvius in Mr. Daniel's weird idea of a midterm. She didn't want to listen to Vida making fun of her for four hours straight (because Vida was fortunate enough to be in Mrs. Tyler's class), so she'd gone to Xander's house, where he'd already opened four different books on his kitchen table, detailing everything there was to know about Mount Vesuvius. That session had been spent discussing whether or not they could include miniature artwork, preserved under the lava.

By the third day attempting this project, which was due that upcoming Monday with a presentation, they'd managed only to make a lumpy papier-mâché volcano frame. Most of the time was spent running in circles around the island in Xander's kitchen, throwing soggy handfuls of flour at each other. Madison had gone home with streaks in her hair whiter than Vida's dyed ones, and a large smile on her face. The project was due in less than a week, they were nowhere near done, and normally at this point, a panic would be settling in, as Madison very much liked to get things done on time. But Xander, while silly, seemed to be genuinely devoted to their project, and she could sleep at night with the mental reassurance that it would be done by Sunday night.

It wasn't. They had finished the volcano, and painted it, and had done a few shoddy buildings to represent the city, but despite all of their research in watching pivotal episodes of _The Brady Bunch_, they couldn't figure out how to make the lava work. Yet somehow, by the time Madison had finished pacing nervously in front of her locker Monday morning, and came into class forty seconds late, Xander was sliding into his chair and affixing her with a confident, no-worries grin. He'd managed to buy them an extension, and hadn't even cost them a point deduction. They finished the volcano by Wednesday, set it off to sporadic applause, and earned themselves an A. From that point on, they always said hi when passing in the hallways.

After Christmas, Madison walked into work at the Rockporium one Saturday morning to find Xander sprawled in the cushy red 'listening' chair, flipping through an issue of _Guitar World_. Madison had to double-check that her watch was right, despite the fact that she'd had to use her key to get in the building, and ascertained that yes, it still was ten minutes before they opened. It was only after this that she realized that Xander was wearing the soft brown Rockporium work shirt (how Toby decided on hot pink and beige as his official staff colors, she would never know). "Toby's an old friend of the family," Xander had drawled as explanation. "I didn't know you worked here."

And so it began: Madison's schedule got completely upended, as she wound up closing four nights a week, despite the fact that she had never worked a closing shift before. As it was, most of her shifts seemed to leave her working alongside Xander. She was never quite sure whose idea was behind that coincidence, and she never asked. Perhaps Xander had worked his charm and nepotistic influence on Toby to arrange this, or perhaps their shaggy-haired boss had just intuited something.

Xander made her laugh. Chip always made her giggle, whether through his obvious efforts with a well-crafted pun, or through the wacky expressions he wore that you couldn't fake, but he had always, for some indefinable reason, gotten along better with Vida. But Xander made Madison _laugh_. Either he'd twist his words around, or say something weird to make sure she was still paying attention, or he'd do an imitation of one of their teachers (Chip was always better at the voices, but Xander was dead-on with characterization). Work never felt like work, because she'd be smiling constantly.

They were closing yet again when it happened. It was the first Saturday of the month, which meant stocking and inventory. Chip had been sick all week, and hadn't come in, and Vida had begged off early because she had an audition for a gig. So Madison and Xander had been left with what seemed like an endless evening of work that was usually split up between four people.

"A little mood music, perhaps?" asked Xander. "Who's your favorite guitarist?"

Toby had asked each of them on their job interviews who the greatest guitarist of all time was. Madison had very little knowledge of rock music, and it was only through a stroke of luck that Toby had been wearing a Hendrix shirt at the time. Her work at the Rockporium had opened her eyes considerably to Jimi and his fellows, but while she liked some of it, she couldn't tell the difference between the Doors or the Eagles, let alone decipher all of the Jefferson Airplane-Jefferson Starship-Starship nonsense. She answered Xander's question with a baffled shrug, and he only grinned in response.

"All right, then we'll go with mine," he said, selecting a CD out of the staff selection, and placing it in the stereo. He pressed a few buttons, then finally let a flare of guitar fill the space. "Tom Petty," he announced. "Off of _Full Moon Fever_. Toby says that Jimi is the greatest, but I've still got a soft spot for Tom. Sit down and take a listen. We've got time."

Xander went back into the storeroom to look through the boxes. Madison started to follow, but he shook his head, pointing to the stereo. "Uh-uh. Listen." With a reproachful look that he'd lifted off of the vice principal, he flicked off the light to let her enjoy the music in a distraction-free environment. She sat down in the red chair, leaned back, and listened. When the song was over, she went up and started the CD from the beginning, and recognized the soft sounds of the track "Free Fallin'" as something she remembered hearing her father sing when she and Vida were younger. Madison smiled, swaying slightly to the music, hypnotized by the green LCD seconds counting down.

When she turned around, Xander was smiling at her with the muted lighting provided by streetlights and the open storeroom door reflecting in his eyes. He kissed her.

The song was over when they broke apart, fading into the next one, and Madison was grateful for the dark so that Xander couldn't see the flush of her cheeks, though she was sure he could feel the heat from them, since he was standing so close.

"I..." she started to say, but couldn't figure out how to finish. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to think, or what she was supposed to feel, much less try and decide what she was supposed to say.

"I'm sorry," he said calmly. "Was that out of line?"

Madison hadn't fallen for Xander when she'd first met him, unlike half the girls in school. The accent was cute, and the soulful eyes were a nice touch, and the smile definitely could make important organs flutter, but she had been too occupied with getting a good grade to really notice any of these things, and by the time she did, it was too late for that, as she already considered him a friend. He was a boy that made her laugh, that made school fun and work pass quickly, and now, he was a boy that had kissed her in the dark while Tom Petty crooned over them.

"It was..." she said, and once again found herself struggling for words. It wasn't her first, that honor had been bestowed upon Josh Homes at the eighth-grade dance. It was in fact her best, though if she only had Josh's to compare it to, that wasn't saying terribly much. It was surprising, it was odd, but it wasn't uncomfortable. What was uncomfortable was the ensuing silence. "You surprised me."

"Coming out of the dark like that?" he said, a teasing note to his voice that she recognized all too well.

"Well, that you did it at all." Madison couldn't bring herself to say the word 'kiss', at least, not in the same vein with her name and Xander's, because she couldn't quite get it to make sense. They were still standing in the dark, making the atmosphere all that more surreal.

"And why wouldn't I?" he said, the grin plain on his face even in the dim of the room. "Do you think you're not a kissable girl, Madison Rocca?"

Truth be told, until this moment, Madison had never thought of herself as a kissable girl. Sure, Josh had kissed her, but Josh hadn't spoken to her in the near year since. Madison was always too busy with school, and work, and her family, and her friends, and learning about video, and wandering around attempting to capture the essence of Briarwood on film, to give much thought to boys as anything more than classmates. She didn't have crushes. It just wasn't her thing. Madison had never once imagined herself in context with anyone else.

"Why?" she asked, after hashing it out in her mind.

"Why what?"

"Why did you kiss me?"

Xander shrugged. "I like you, Madison. C'mon, we should finish up." It was an abrupt change of subject, as she followed him somewhat dazedly back to the storeroom, but it was hardly rude. Xander had obviously gathered that the subject was closed, at least for that night, and he was kind enough to step back and let Madison sort it out.

They did not get together. They were better friends than ever, and Madison two days later acquired the complete Tom Petty collection—both solo and with the Heartbreakers—that Xander burned for her. They kissed again, twice more in spirit of late nights in dark buildings, a few chaste pecks from Xander after walking her home, and one time during a game of Spin the Bottle at Chip's birthday party, where he kissed her on the cheek, at the corner of her mouth, but not really on the lips, and they both had to pretend like they'd never done it before. Madison even had a boyfriend through most of sophomore year, and Xander was usually seen in the company of various girls that he never admitted to being in a relationship with, like a true movie star. But there was always something lurking, something that Madison was too shy to put words too. Xander never mentioned it, and she always wondered if he was simply waiting for her to say something first. She never did.

When Madison did her documentaries, where her sister and her friends were always the stars, Xander would flash her flirty winks, or flex his muscles for her, and she would turn away, hiding her blush, and editing out that footage later. She didn't need hard evidence of images that were already burned in her brain, memories of fleeting moments, of not-quite touches and words never said.


End file.
